Continued...

Sorry guys, I didn't realize the second half of that had been cut off... And Clint, Dylan, and Julia, if you're interested my IS club is meeting next week to discuss the role of the media in facilitating democracy and the role of technology in sustaining an egalitarian society.

Architecture:

How people interact with space and how do these places incorporate and reflect the history and culture of the area in which they are built? You will study a particular site (in Jenny's case a particular shopping center) by close-reading the physical space itself, its "climate," and its inhabitants; researching the history of the location and its current uses (events, stores, people, etc.); and in Jenny's case, conducting a comparative study between two different shopping locations.

To be honest, it seems to me like you two have a fairly explicit research question and the ways in which you intend to research will allow you to answer it. I don't know if this is interesting to you, but in Jenny's case it seems like it would be fascinating to make one of your locations a US shopping mall (can I say mall or is it shopping center?) and compare your findings in say, Bellevue Square, to a shopping site in Amsterdam. Seeing as we have an undeniably consumerist culture and much of our public activity centers around a mall, I would think a comparison between the two sites would reflect on our societies more broadly and you could draw some insightful inferences as to the role of these consumer hubs in connecting people and communities in a place where a great amount of importance is placed on material objects and a place that doesn't necessarily have the same values. Studing Bell Square prior to leaving would also give you some practice in a familiar setting for your research methods in Amsterdam, I plan to go to a mosque before leaving Seattle and get an idea of what to expect.

Brands/Consumer Culture:

Eddy: How do stores create a unique culture that represents them, their mission, their values, and their product?
Haylee: How does does fashion create and perpetuate gender roles and identity? I think this is very interesting and especially relevant given the "idealized" portrayals of women in our media and the effects these have on young girls and women in general; I am excited to see what you find...
Katherine: How is fashion a form of self-expression? (Do you mean high-fashion or walking down the street fashion? Because if you mean walking-down-the-street fashion, it seems like you would want to incorporate interviews with people into your methodology, because analyzing their clothing and photos of them could cause you to draw incorrect inferences. For example, I asked Fiona why she wore so much black ("is it because black is a "bad-ass, hip" color?") and she was extremely offended, she simply likes the color. It seems like the self-identification part would be important, so actually asking people WHY the clothes they wear represent them and what conscious choices they make when they put on a certain outfit."

Communal Methods: Visit/close-read stores and informally interview employees (Eddy--I wonder how informative these interviews will be, seeing as marketing and brand conformance is usually determined by executives (with the help of a contracted designer of course) and then imposed on each individual shop, so while that will not be a problem in boutique stores like the image you showed us, it will pose a problem in chain stores where even the manager probably had little or no say in the company culture and the look of the store and is not necessarily able to articulate the impetus behind the decor; maybe you could also research the websites of chain stores and look at their missions and determine how the design of the shop fits with that?); analyze photographs/ads; surveys; interviews with people?